Monday, October 20, 2008

I can hear her scratching at my bedroom door.She moans, as if her soul is coming out ofher little body. The screeching, as if her wrists were being cut, not by her own will. Shetries to peer though the key hole by my fancy door knob. She pulls, trying to pry my heavy,wooden door, with her little delicate fingers. How did I get myself into this? Why must Ievaluate and investigate everything the seems out of the ordinary? My name is Jone Reads,and this is my story...

It all started when I was about five or six. It was my birthday. My aunt Millydecided to invite me to stay at her house for a whole week. I was so excited. Lizzy, myaunt's stepdaughter, and I never really got along. But in my aunt's eyes, we were a perfectset of best friends. As you could probably tell, Lizzy wasn't too fond of my soon fate.She had two choices at this point, become my favourite cousin, or make my week a livinghell. She chose living hell.

As the days went by, the numbers on my countdown turned into single digits. Finally allof my waiting was over. My mum drove me to my aunts house. After insisting that she get hometo make my father and 14 year old brother dinner, my mum sat down on my aunts new blue couchwith a cup of tea and a scone. My aunt argued with Lizzy about my sharing a room wit her, andfinally gave up and offered for me to stay in the guest bedroom. My mother insisted that I wouldbe to scared to sleep for 6 nights by myself, but I wanted to be treated older like Lizzy and saidthat I would be fine. After my mother FINALLY left, we had dinner and I went up stairs to get changedin my pj's. As I was changing, I heard a noise. It was coming from a locked drawer on my aunt's dresser.I tried to open it but discovered that it was locked. I decided not to worry about it and toforget about it. Little did I know that that was now impossible. My fate was already sealed.

As the hours passed by, I realised that I wasn't as brave as I thought. I found that I trulywas too scared to sleep by myself for one night, let alone six nights. I finally got up my courageand closed my eyes and fell asleep. The next morning I calmly explained to my aunt that I wasn't alrightwith sleeping by myself in the guest bedroom. She offered to let me to sleep down stairs on the couch, if thatwould help, or for me to sleep with her and my uncle Sam, or my mother could come and stay with us, or I couldgo home and call off the rest of the visit. Unfortunately, Lizzy overheard our conversation and started to tease meand call me a chicken and a baby. Tears started to fall on the hardwood floor of the kitchen frommy face then my aunt calmed me down and scolded Lizzy. She started to cry too. Her mother sent her up to her room. As Lizzy ran upthe stairs, she turned around and yelled "You better hope that Clair doesn't follow you home, even though it's already too late,she has already chosen you," she told me. Then she disappeared into the upstairs portion of the house.

I asked my aunt who Clair was. She sat me down on one of the bar stools seated by the island in the middle of the gigantickitchen and started her story. She explained that Clair was her great grandmother's china doll. "When my she died she, Clair was passeddown to my grandmother, then to my mum and then on my 10th birthday, to me. When your uncle Sam and I got married, I gave the doll toLizzy for her 10th birthday. When she first got it, she loved it. She wouldn't go anywhere without Clair." She said. I asked ifmy mother knew about Clair, and she said yes. "She does know about Clair, but doesn't like to talk about her. She thinks thatold china dolls are creepy. That's why I got Clair from our mother instead of her. She was supposed to get it, for she is the oldest, but sheinsisted that I would enjoy her more then she would. She was right."

I decided that I would call my mum and ask her if she could come and pick me up to take me home. "Maybe you'll feel betterabout staying longer when your older Joan?" I agreed with my aunt. As usual, my mother was late picking me up, and stayed for dinnerafter insisting that we get home. After dinner, I went upstairs to the guest bedroom to get my bags. When I first entered the roomI could feel that something was wrong but I couldn't put my finger on what it was. I opened the closet to take out my clothes and was startledand surprised to see the old china doll was sitting on top of my luggage. I was so scared. I could have sworn that I saw her blink. I justfigured that Lizzy was trying to scare me by putting her there. I tried not to think about it and grabbed my bag and closed the closet door. Just beforeI left the room, I noticed that the locked drawer on the dresser was ajar. I decided not to worry about it, and proceeded down the stairs to meetmy mother and aunt.